Following the resignation of President Nixon, several lawsuits shaped the review and access procedures developed for the Nixon Presidential Materials. In order to better understand the development of these procedures it is helpful to look at the chronology of the court decisions from his resignation to the present.

Twenty-nine former Nixon aides and Cabinet officials file suit in U.S. District Court (Allen v. Carmen) challenging constitutionality of the fifth set of regulations, specifically the one-house veto provision.

December 30

U.S. District Court rules in Allen v. Carmen that the fifth set of regulations are unconstitutional on the grounds that Congress exercised the one-house veto provision of PRMPA. 578 F. Supp. 951 (D.D.C. 1983).

The final version of the Nixon Public Access Regulations are published in the Federal Register.

1987

The Nixon White House Special Files are released to the public. President Nixon prevents the release of 150,000 pages of documents, claiming they were purely "personal-private" and "personal-political." In accordance with the public access regulations in 36 CFR 1275.44, the Presidential Materials Review Board is formed to adjudicate Nixon's claims of these Contested Files.

Professor Stanley Kutler and Public Citizen file suit against the National Archives (Kutler v. Peterson) to force NARA to release Watergate-related conversations and corresponding tapes subject logs from the Nixon tapes.

June

President Nixon intervenes in Kutler v. Peterson.

1993

July

President Nixon seeks an injunction to block the public release of additional Nixon White House Tapes pending (1) segregation and return of all "private or personal" conversations, and (2) processing of all 4,000 hours of tapes for release as a "single integral file segment."

August

President Nixon is granted a preliminary injunction blocking further public releases of tapes. The U.S. District Court orders NARA to excise the purely "personal-private" and "personal-political" segments from the original Nixon tapes and all copies. In response, NARA appeals the court order to the U.S. Court of Appeals.

NARA begins editing purely "personal-private" and "personal-political" segments from the digital copies of the Nixon tapes to comply with the August 1993 court order.

NARA publishes a notice in the Federal Register proposing revisions to the public access regulations governing the Nixon tapes and materials.

April

Following President Nixon's death, NARA returns purely "personal-private" and "personal-political" conversation segments to representatives of President Nixon's estate. These segments were edited from the enhanced master copy of the Nixon tapes.

May

William E. Griffin and John H. Taylor intervene on behalf of the Nixon estate to substitute for Nixon after his his death.

The Presidential Materials Review Board completed its review of the Contested Files originally scheduled to be released in 1987. As a result, approximately 28,000 documents were released to the public.

Griffin and Taylor v. United States began in U.S. District Court. This case, often referred to as the "Compensation Suit," was originally brought by Nixon in 1975 seeking compensation for the seizure of his Presidential materials.

2000

June

The U.S. agrees to pay the Nixon Estate $18 million in an out-of-court settlement of Griffin and Taylor v. United States (Compensation Suit).

The Nixon estate and NARA agree to amend the public access regulations, allowing for the duplication of all publicly available White House Tapes.

2004

January

Congress passes legislation that provides for the establishment of a federally-operated Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, California. Specifically, the legislation amends the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act of 1974, which mandated that Nixon's Presidential Materials were to remain in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. Under this new legislation, the materials may now be moved to a federally-operated facility outside of the Washington, D.C., area.

On April 10, 2006, Archivist Allen Weinstein announces the designation of presidential historian Timothy Naftali as the first director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. Read more in the Press Release. Dr. Naftali begins on October 16, 2006.